The Burning Land sc-5

by Bernard Cornwell

  “It was too far from the ships,” I said. Haesten knew that better than anyone, for he had fought here before and his men had managed to burn Sigefrid’s ships before the Norseman could bring men down the hill to stop him. Now Haesten had blocked the creek beneath the hill, guarding its seaward end with the beached ships and the landward entrance with a new and formidable fortress. Between those strongholds were his ships. It meant we could probably take the old fort without much trouble, but holding the high ground would not help us because the new stronghold was out of arrow range.

  “I couldn’t see very well,” Finan said, “but it looked to me as if the new fort is on an island.”

  “He’s making it difficult,” I said mildly.

  “Can it be done?” Æthelflæd asked, sounding dubious.

  “It has to be done,” I said.

  “We have no men!”

  “Yet,” I said stubbornly.

  Because my plan was to capture that stronghold. It was crammed with Haesten’s prisoners, all the women and children taken as slaves, and it was in Beamfleot’s new fort that his plunder was being stored. I suspected Haesten’s family was also there, indeed the families of every Dane ravaging Mercia were probably in that place. Their ships were there too, protected by the fort. If we could take the fort we could impoverish Haesten, capture dozens of hostages, and destroy a Danish fleet. If we could capture Beamfleot we would win a victory that would dismay the Danes and cheer every Saxon heart. The victory might not win the war, but it would weaken Haesten immeasurably and many of his followers, losing faith, would abandon him, for what kind of a leader was a man who could not protect his men’s families? Æthelred believed Mercia’s salvation was best secured by waiting for Haesten to attack Gleawecestre, but I believed we had to attack Haesten where he least expected an assault. We had to strike at his base, destroy his fleet, and take back his plunder.

  “How many men do you have?” Ralla asked.

  “Eighty-three at the last count.”

  He laughed. “And how many do you need to capture Beamfleot?”

  “Two thousand.”

  “And you don’t believe in miracles?” Ralla asked.

  Æthelflæd squeezed my hand. “The men will come,” she said, though she sounded far from convinced.

  “Maybe,” I said. I was staring at the ships in their sheltered creek and thought, in its way, that Beamfleot was as impregnable as Bebbanburg. “And if they don’t come?” I said softly.

  “What will you do?” Æthelflæd asked.

  “Take you north,” I said, “take my children north, and fight till I have the silver to raise an army that can capture Bebbanburg.”

  She turned her face up to mine. “No,” she said. “I am Mercian now, Uhtred.”

  “Mercian and Christian,” I said sourly.

  “Yes,” she said, “Mercian and Christian. And what are you, Lord Uhtred?”

  I looked to where reflected sunlight winked from the spear-points of the watchmen on Beamfleot’s high hill. “A fool,” I said bitterly, “a fool.”

  “My fool,” she said, and stood on tiptoe to kiss my cheek.

  “Row!” Ralla bellowed, “row!” He shoved the steering oar hard over so that the Haligast turned southward and then west. Two large enemy ships were nosing out of the creek, sliding past the new ship-fortresses, their oar-banks catching the sun as they dipped and rose.

  We fled upriver.

  And, like the fool I was, I dreamed of capturing Beamfleot.

  FOUR

  Next day Ealdorman Ælfwold came to Lundene. His lands lay in the northern parts of Saxon Mercia, which made them the most vulnerable to Danish attacks, and he had only kept his estates by the expense of hiring warriors, by bribing the Danes, and by fighting. He was old, a widower, and tired of the struggle. “As soon as the harvest is gathered,” he said, “the Danes come. Rats and Danes, they arrive together.”

  He brought nearly three hundred men, most of whom were well armed and properly trained. “They might as well die with you as rot at Gleawecestre,” he remarked. He was homeless because his hall had been burned by one of Haesten’s bands. “I abandoned it,” he admitted. “I’m used to fighting off a couple of hundred of the bastards, but not thousands.” He had sent his household servants, his daughters, and grandchildren to Wessex in the hope they would be safe there. “Are the northern jarls truly planning an attack on Alfred?” he asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “God help us,” he said.

  Folk were moving into the old city. Lundene is really two cities, the Roman one built on the high ground and, to the west, beyond the River Fleot, the new Saxon city. The first was a place of high stone walls and the faded glory of marble pillars, while the other was a malodorous swamp of thatch and wattle, but folk preferred the swamp because they swore the crumbling Roman buildings were haunted by ghosts. Now, fearing Haesten’s men more than any specter, they were crossing the Fleot and finding themselves shelter in the older houses. The city stank. The Roman sewers had caved in, the cesspits were not large enough, and the streets became fouled. Cattle were penned in the old Roman arena and pigs roamed the streets. Weohstan’s garrison manned the walls, which were high and stout. Most of the battlements were Roman-built, but where time had decayed the stonework there were thick oak palisades.

  Finan was leading horsemen north and east every day and brought back news of Danes returning eastward. “They’re taking plunder to Beamfleot,” he said, “plunder and slaves.”

  “Are they staying in Beamfleot?”

  He shook his head. “They go back to Mercia.” He was angry because we did not have enough men for him to attack the Danish horsemen. He could only watch.

  Ralla, scouting downriver in the Haligast, saw more Danes arriving from across the sea. Rumors had spread that both Wessex and Mercia were in disarray and the crews were hurrying to share the plunder. Haesten, meanwhile, tore destruction across Mercia’s farmlands while Æthelred waited at Gleawecestre for an attack that never came. Then, the day after Ælfwold brought his housecarls to Lundene, came the news I had been expecting. The Northumbrian fleet had landed in Defnascir and had made a camp above the Uisc, which meant Alfred’s West Saxon army marched to protect Exanceaster.

  The Saxons seemed doomed. A week after my foray downriver I sat in the palace hall and watched the fire-cast shadows flicker on the high ceiling. I could hear monks chanting from Erkenwald’s cavernous church, which lay next to the Mercian palace. If I had climbed to the roof I would have seen the glow of fires far to the north and west. Mercia was burning.

  That was the night Ælfwold abandoned hope. “We can’t just wait here, lord,” he told me at the evening meal, “the city has enough men to defend it, and my three hundred are needed elsewhere.”

  I ate that evening with my usual companions; Æthelflæd, Finan, Ælfwold, Father Pyrlig, and Beornoth. “If I had another three hundred,” I said, and despised myself for saying it. Even if fate brought me another three hundred warriors I would still not have nearly enough men to capture Beamfleot. Æthelred had won. We had challenged him, we had lost.

  “If you were me, lord,” Ælfwold, a shrewd man, asked quietly, “what would you do?”

  I gave him an honest answer. “Rejoin Æthelred,” I said, “and persuade him to attack the Danes.”

  He crumbled a piece of bread, finding a chip of millstone that he rubbed between his fingers. He was not aware of what he did. He was thinking of the Danes, of the battle he knew must be fought, of the battle he feared would be lost. He shook his head. “Tomorrow,” he said quietly, “I take my men west.” He looked up at me. “I’m sorry.”

  “You have no choice,” I said.

  I felt like a man who had lost almost everything playing at dice and then, like a fool, had risked all that remained on one last throw. I had failed. What had I thought? That men would come to me because of reputation? Instead they had stayed with their gold-givers. Æthelred did not want me to succeed and so he had o
pened his chests of silver and offered wealth to men if they joined his army. I needed a thousand men and I could not find them, and without them I could do nothing. I thought bitterly of Iseult’s prophecy made so many years before, that Alfred would give me power, that I would lead a shining horde and have a woman of gold.

  That night, in the upper room of the palace where I had a straw mattress, I gazed at the dull glow of distant fires beyond the horizon and I wished I had stayed in Northumbria. I had been drifting, I thought, ever since Gisela’s death. I thought Æthelflæd’s summons had given my life a new purpose, but now I could see no future. I stood at the window, a great stone arch that framed the sky, and I could hear singing from the taverns, the shouts of men arguing, a woman’s laughter, and I thought that Alfred had taken away the power he had given me and the promised shining horde was a half-crew of men who were beginning to doubt my ability to lead them anywhere.

  “So what will you do?” Æthelflæd asked from behind me.

  I had not heard her come. Her bare feet made no sound on the stone floor. “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  She came and stood beside me. She touched my hand where it rested on the sill, tracing the ball of my thumb with a gentle finger. “The swelling has gone,” she said.

  “The itch too,” I said.

  “See?” she asked, amusement in her voice, “the sting was no omen.”

  “It was,” I said, “but I’ve yet to discover what it means.”

  She left her hand on mine, her touch light as a feather. “Father Pyrlig says I have a choice.”

  “Which is?”

  “To go back to Æthelred or find a nunnery in Wessex.”

  I nodded. Monks still chanted in the church, their droning punctuated by laughter and singing from the taverns. Folk were seeking oblivion in ale or else they were praying. They all knew what the fires of the burning sky meant, that the end was coming. “Did you turn my eldest son into a Christian?” I asked.

  “No,” Æthelflæd said, “he found it for himself.”

  “I’ll take him north,” I said, “and beat the nonsense out of him.” Æthelflæd said nothing to that, just pressed her hand on mine. “A nunnery?” I asked bleakly.

  “I’m married,” she said, “and the church tells me that if I am not with my God-given husband then I must be seen to be virtuous.” I was still gazing at the fire-smeared horizon where the flames lit the underside of clouds. Above Lundene the sky was clear so that moonlight cast sharp shadows from the edges of the Roman roof tiles. Æthelflæd leaned her head on my shoulder. “What are you thinking?”

  “That unless we defeat the Danes there’ll be no convents left.”

  “Then what will I do?” she asked lightly.

  I smiled. “Father Beocca liked to talk of the wheel of fortune,” I said, and wondered why I had spoken of him as if he lay in the past. Did I see the end coming? Would those distant fires creep ever closer till they burned Lundene and seared the last Saxon from Britain? “At Fearnhamme,” I said, “I was your father’s warlord. Now I’m a fugitive with not enough men to fill a ship’s benches.”

  “My father calls you his miracle worker,” Æthelflæd said. “True,” she said when I laughed, “that’s what he calls you.”

  “I could work him a miracle,” I said bitterly, “if he gave me men.” I thought again of Iseult’s prophecy, how Alfred would give me power and my woman would be golden, and that was when I turned at last from the distant fires and looked down at Æthelflæd’s golden hair and took her into my arms.

  And next day Ælfwold would leave Lundene and I would be left powerless.

  Three horsemen came first. They arrived in the dawn, galloping across the Fleot’s filthy valley and up to the city gates. I heard the horn calling from the ramparts and I threw on clothes, pulled on boots, kissed Æthelflæd, and ran down the stairs to the palace’s hall just as the door was thrown open and the three mailed men strode in, their feet splintering the already splintered tiles. Their leader was tall, grim and bearded. He stopped two paces from me. “You must have some ale in this shit-stinking city,” he said. I was staring with disbelief. “I need breakfast,” he demanded, and then could not help himself. He laughed. It was Steapa, and with him were two younger men, both warriors. I shouted for the servants to bring food and ale, still hardly believing that Steapa had come. “I’m bringing you twelve hundred men,” he said briskly.

  For a moment I could hardly speak. “Twelve hundred?” I echoed feebly.

  “Alfred’s best,” Steapa said, “and the Ætheling is coming too.”

  “Edward?” I was too astonished to make any sensible response.

  “Edward and twelve hundred of Alfred’s best men. We rode ahead of them,” he explained, then turned and bowed as Æthelflæd, swathed in a great cloak, entered the hall. “Your father sends his greetings, lady,” he said.

  “And he sends your brother,” I said, “with twelve hundred men.”

  “God be praised,” Æthelflæd said.

  The hall filled as the news spread. My children were there, and Bishop Erkenwald and Ælfwold and Father Pyrlig, then Finan and Weohstan. “The Ætheling Edward will lead the forces,” Steapa said, “but he is to accept Lord Uhtred’s guidance.”

  Bishop Erkenwald looked astonished. He was glancing from Æthelflæd to me and I could tell he was scenting sin with the eagerness of a terrier smelling a fox’s earth. “The king sent you?” he asked Steapa.

  “Yes, lord.”

  “But what of the Danes in Defnascir?”

  “They’re just scratching…” Steapa said, then reddened because he had almost said something that he thought would offend the bishop, let alone a king’s daughter.

  “Scratching their arses?” I finished for him.

  “They’re doing nothing, my lady,” Steapa muttered. He was the son of slaves and, for all his eminence as the commander of Alfred’s bodyguard, he was awed by Æthelflæd’s presence. “But the king wants his men back soon, lord,” Steapa said, looking at me, “just in case the Northumbrian Danes do wake up.”

  “So finish your breakfast,” I said, “then ride back to Edward. Tell him he’s not to enter the city.” I did not want the West Saxon army inside Lundene with its tempting taverns and whores. “He’s to march north around the city,” I ordered, “and keep marching east.”

  Steapa frowned. “He’s expecting to find supplies here.”

  I looked at Bishop Erkenwald. “You’ll send food and ale to the army. Weohstan’s garrison will provide escorts.”

  The bishop, offended by my peremptory tone, hesitated, then nodded. He knew I spoke now with Alfred’s authority. “Where do I send the supplies?” he asked.

  “You remember Thunresleam?” I asked Steapa.

  “The old hall on the hill, lord?”

  “Edward’s to meet me there. You too.” I looked back to the bishop. “Send the supplies there.”

  “To Thunresleam?” Bishop Erkenwald asked suspiciously, smelling still more sin because the name reeked of paganism.

  “Thor’s Grove,” I confirmed. “It’s close to Beamfleot.” The bishop made the sign of the cross, but he dared not protest. “You and one hundred of your men are coming with me,” I told Weohstan.

  “My orders are to defend Lundene,” Weohstan said uncertainly.

  “If we’re at Beamfleot,” I said, “there’ll be no Danes threatening Lundene. We march in two hours.”

  It took nearer four hours, but with Ælfwold’s Mercians, Weohstan’s West Saxons, and my own men we numbered over four hundred mounted warriors who clattered through the city’s eastern gate. I left my children in the care of Æthelflæd’s servants. Æthelflæd insisted on riding with us. I argued against that, telling her she should not risk her life, but she refused to stay in Lundene. “Didn’t you take an oath to serve me?” she asked.

  “More fool me, yes.”

  “Then I give the orders,” she said, smiling.

  “Yes, my duck,” I said, and ea
rned a thump on the arm. At the beginning of their marriage Æthelred had always called Æthelflæd “my duck,” an endearment that annoyed her. So now she rode beneath my banner of the wolf’s head, Weohstan flew the West Saxon dragon, while Ælfwold’s Mercians displayed a long flag showing the Christian cross. “I want my own banner,” Æthelflæd told me.

  “Then make one,” I said.

  “It will show geese,” she said.

  “Geese! Not ducks?”

  She made a face at me. “Geese are Saint Werburgh’s symbol,” she explained. “There was a huge flock of geese ravaging a cornfield and she prayed and God sent the geese away. It was a miracle!”

  “The abbess at Lecelad did that?”

  “No, no! The abbess was named after Saint Werburgh. The saint died a long time ago. Maybe I’ll show her on my banner. I know she protects me! I prayed to her last night and see what she did?” She gestured at the men following us. “My prayers were answered!”

  I wondered if she had prayed before or after she had come to my room, but decided that was a question best left unasked.

  We rode just north of the drab marshes that edged the Temes. This was East Anglian territory, but there were no great estates close to Lundene. There had once been beamed halls and busy villages, but the frequent raids and counter-raids had left the halls in ashes and the villages in terror. The Danish King Eohric of East Anglia was supposedly a Christian and had signed a peace treaty with Alfred, agreeing that his Danes would stay away from both Mercia and Wessex, but the two kings might as well have signed an agreement to stop men drinking ale. The Danes were forever crossing the frontier and the Saxons retaliated, and so we rode past impoverished settlements. The people saw us coming and fled to the marshes or else to the woods on the few small hills. We ignored them.

  Beamfleot lay at the southern end of the great line of hills which barred our path. Most of the hills were heavily wooded, though above the village, where the slopes were highest and steepest, we could see the old fort which had been made on the grassy dome above the river. We swerved northward, climbing a steep track which led to Thunresleam, and we rode cautiously because the Danes would have seen us coming and they could easily have sent a force to attack us as we rode uphill through the thick trees. I expected that attack. I had sent Æthelflæd and her two maidservants to the center of our column and had ordered every man to ride with his shield looped onto his arms and weapons ready. I listened for the sound of birds fleeing through the leaves, for the clink of harness, for the thud of a hoof on leaf mold, for the sudden shout that would announce a charge of Viking horsemen from the hill above, but the only birds clattering through the leaves were the pigeons we ourselves scared away. The defenders of Beamfleot had evidently yielded the hill to us, and not one Dane tried to stop us.